Fabrics, yarns, threads, manufactured textile articles, such as clothing, and laundry have all been treated at some stage in the manufacturing process or subsequently, to impart desirable properties to them. Compositions for effecting such treatments have been produced in various physical forms, including emulsions and sprays, and applications have been made at different temperatures and under various conditions so as to effect optimum treatments. Among the treatments have been the applications of softening and antistatic agents to fabrics.
The treatment of laundry in the washing machine to improve the softness of the fabrics thereof is well known. Usually, specific substantive treating compounds have been incorporated in detergent compositions or have been dissolved in the wash water or rinse water. Effective conditioning compounds employed have been cationic softening agents, often of the quaternary ammonium salt type. Most effective commercial applications of such softeners have been in the rinse water utilized in a laundering operation. Some softening operations have been undertaken in the laundry dryer. Softening agents have been sprayed onto the laudry or the dryer interior. Both nebulizing devices included in the dryer and aerosol sprays have been employed to direct onto laundry germicides, starches and other materials for improving the properties of the treated laundry. Fabric conditioning agents have been incorporated in cellulosic substances and from these have been transferred to laundry being dried in an automatic laundry dryer.
The methods described above, although useful in many cases, possess certain drawbacks which make the discovery and development of improved conditioning techniques desirable. For example, cationic conditioning agents are not effectively applied to fabrics from aqueous solutions of anionic washing agents. Non-substantive conditioning agents are useless or essentially ineffective in rinse water applications because most of the active softening material is removed with the water expressed from the fabric. Utilization of waxy cationic conditioning agents on paper has given rise to over-application of the waxy substance on the laundry and in many cases such a waxy deposit appears as an oily spot or stain, especially after ironing. Although this spotting problem has been effectively overcome in applications in which the composition of the treating agent is modified so that excessive applications are avoided, there is room for improvement in the forms of conditioning products and processes, especially in making them easier to use and less sensitive to variation of dryer conditions. For example, pressurized compositions of the "aerosol" type are easily stored, ready for use, and are very convenient to employ. The housewife is familiar with the use of "aerosol" products, has accepted them. Accordingly, the present inventors have worked to produce useful fabric conditioners from aerosols.
Although one can prepare aerosol sprays, which are described in an application for patent entitled SOFTENING OF FABRICS, filed by one of the present inventors (H. P. Furgal) on the same day as the present application, for ease of measuring the quantity of product applied without the need for expensive metering valve parts, to avoid the need for spraying droplets of conditioning agent into the dryer, and to improve conditioning resulting, it has been considered desirable to provide a different physical form of the conditioning agent. Although the use of a foam or lather of conditioning composition might be expected to be ineffective, because it would be thought that foam would deposit too much conditioning material on particular sites of the fabrics being treated and would not facilitate spreading of the conditioner over all the laundry, the contrary has been discovered, especially when stable foams are used. Such products are readily applied, easily transferred over the fabrics of all the laundry while the laundry is being tumbled in the dryer and do not cause staining, even when cationic conditioning agents are employed and are applied to permanent press items which are subsequently ironed.